Jonathan and Buhari are ‘problematic’ candidates, says Soyinka

Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka, has criticised the two frontline candidates in the March 28 presidential election, President Goodluck Jonathan of the Peoples Democratic Party and Maj. Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) of the All Progressives Congress.

Soyinka, in an interview with the BBC on Monday, insisted that the political parties should have come up with far better options than the two leading candidates.

He described President Jonathan, who is running for a second term and the opposition leader, Buhari, as “problematic candidates.”

“There is a huge albatross hanging [around] the necks of the two main candidates. I can understand the dilemma which many voters have,” Soyinka said.

He added that “one contender is troubled by the present, the other by the past.”

Soyinka also decried the lack of fair play in the election, saying the spirit of “let’s have a fair war” was not yet deep enough.

Soyinka, however, said Nigerians should be ready to “go back to the trenches stand up against misrule from whoever wins the election.”

On what to do to counter the Boko Haram sect, whose activities was cited for the postponement of the election, Soyinka called for “an aerial bombardment with weapons of the mind” in addition to the military offensive.

Asked whether he believed the nation could be dismembered in the next 10 years, he said, “I doubt it very much. The threats of dismemberment have been going on so long that one of these days there is going to be a wish fulfilled.

...Punch